I
the Church of God in
ndonesia
CENTER OF THE WIND
by Andrew Tommy Smith Jr.
L
ITERALLY A WORLD AWAY from nesia, and the Church of God, through lines of the Islamic world in Indonesia.
Savannah, Georgia, where I was her Indonesian indigenous partner The roots of Church of God ministry
born, is the oil-rich country of denomination since 1967, Gereja Bethel in Indonesia can be traced to a World
Indonesia, which has been my Indonesia, worshipping in 5,200 congrega- Pentecostal Fellowship meeting in which
home for the past quarter cen- the late Dr. Ho L. Senduk of
tury. These “Spice Islands,” as Indonesia prayed to be seat-
history recalls them, stretch ed beside a leader of an
more than 3,200 miles east to American denomination
west and 1,200 miles north to with whom he could forge a
south along the equator in denominational partnership.
Southeast Asia. They form a Senduk realized his need
bridge between the continents of an international church
of Australia and Asia, a cross- organization to come along-
roads between the Pacific and side of his Indonesian
Indian Oceans. denomination for strength,
Indonesia is the world’s partnership, and assistance
fourth most populated nation, in the development of an
80 percent of whom the gov- Indonesian seminary. The
ernment census says are Islam- Holy Spirit guided the late
ic. There are more Muslim Dr. Paul H. Walker of the
adherents in Indonesia than Church of God to sit beside
there are in the countries of Senduk at that global inter-
Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, denominational gathering.
Kuwait, and Syria combined! We now know that God
Yet there is a mighty wind of the Holy tions, is in the center of the wind bringing was at work during that early meeting,
Spirit blowing across the islands of Indo- revival and transformation to the front preparing a joint force to penetrate sinful
TARGETING METRO JAKARTA
Pastor Paul Widjaya serves as the state overseer of Gereja Bethel Indonesia for
the Jakarta area, where he supervises 511 churches and over 3,000 ministers. Since
becoming overseer in 2004, 135 new churches have been
organized.
Reared in Buddhism, his parents allowed him as a child
to attend Sunday school, where he heard the message of
Jesus. At age 17, critically ill with asthma, Paul accepted
Christ as Savior and was divinely healed. Pastor Paul’s
vision is to penetrate metro Jakarta (population 20 million)
with church plants in malls, office buildings, hotels, and
existing church facilities, and to have 1,200 congregations
in metro Jakarta by the end of his tenure in 2012.
8 EVANGEL • JUNE 2009
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